


Residuum

by AuthorGod



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Explicit Consent, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Love Confessions, M/M, POV John Watson, Pining, Post-Reichenbach, They bone, annnd...?, as in reichenbach happened, but also let me live, but season 3 canon is nonexistent lmao, it didn't happen bob, probably too fluffy at the end, when will mark gatiss enter the void with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 03:24:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11774502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorGod/pseuds/AuthorGod
Summary: He would do this as a child when his mum and dad fought.  Pick a point on the wall.  Stare hard until he felt anchored, just there, right where the damp is making the wallpaper peel.  If you look long enough, it’s the house that’s falling apart and not you.  For a moment you forget how you feel and how later you’ll still feel-- and  how later, he’ll remember Sherlock’s gone in the middle of the night, and what is to miss him so much John could scream from it.





	Residuum

**Author's Note:**

> Me: shows up like... five years late with a post-reichenbach fix it fic

“What’s on your mind?”

 

“Nothing.”

Ella stares back at him from across the room, steady fingers wrapped around a biro. She looks at him, not a twitch to her lips, but her eyes are always kind. It makes the hairs on John’s neck prick. He doesn’t want kindness right now, or patience.

“Back to this?” she asks, meaning back to the silent rage, the stoicism. Back to the furrowed gaze at the point somewhere above her right shoulder where John focuses. 

 

He would do this as a child when his mum and dad fought. Pick a point on the wall. Stare hard until he felt anchored, just there, right where the damp is making the wallpaper peel. If you look long enough, it’s the house that’s falling apart and not you. For a moment you forget how you feel and how later you’ll still feel--and how later, he’ll remember Sherlock’s gone in the middle of the night, and what is to miss him so much John could scream from it.

 

It’s as if the grief is a room John had entered, and the door had been locked behind him.

 

\---

 

The first three months after Sherlock dies are a haze of bereavement, the great mess of it, and the mess John makes out of it. The anger doesn’t come until much later. When it does come, it lays waste to all in its path. All the yelling, the uncalled for jibes at Harry and any of John’s friends who make the mistake of caring, no one is free from it. _I don’t mean it,_ John wants to tell them, but he can’t make himself apologise and he can’t just turn it off either. He knows a part of him _wants_ this bitterness, wants to keep it safe and let it grow inside him. Allow its brutal roots to choke out all the bits and pieces that came alive when Sherlock first looked at him from across that lab, and took John into his life. 

It was destiny. 

 

 _That’s stupid_ Sherlock says in John's head. He’s right. Of course he is. Destiny doesn’t exist. John knows that, but there was always a feeling of inevitability with Sherlock. Unrecognised possibilities, a entire world of promises that they’ve been robbed of.

But calling it destiny is better than calling it by it’s true name. 

 

Until John _does_ say it out loud one day, months later, to Harry in the middle of one of their movie nights established as a way of keeping each other accountable. John would do this with Sherlock. Mycroft called them Danger Nights, when Sherlock was upset and craving and addiction would rear its head. John hated that drugs, but he loved stepping into the raging path of Sherlock’s focus on those nights. Sherlock would lay him bare in moments, the way John could never do on his own. Sherlock could tell by the look in eyes exactly how long he’d slept the night before, he could tell when John was sad by the set of his mouth, and it would make John angry. No one should know so much from so little. But as soon as he’d get the chance, John would put himself in Sherlock’s path again and again, hoping Sherlock would know more about John than John knew about himself.

 

He doesn’t even know what it is Harry’s put on. Something with outer space, killer aliens, a woman with a glint in her eye and a big gun. The nothingness of space crushing over a titanium hull. Everything else is out _there_ and John is in _here_ , locked up inside of himself.

 

“I think I was in love with him,” John says to himself, but also to Harry. “I think..” He blinks, fingers scraping over his knees, heart pumping a steady clatter against his ribs. 

Harry mutes the telly and turns toward him, waits patiently in the silence that follows John’s admission. When nothing else comes she reaches out and touches John’s shoulder. 

“I know,” she says, gentle about it, in a way neither of them have managed with each other in years.

A muscle in John’s jaw spasms. “ _He_ didn’t know. _He_ just hops off a roof and fucking-” John gestures to the ground and makes a sound effect with his mouth. _Phhbbtt!_ He laughs at himself, pulls up the collar of his jumper and laughs into it, shoulders shaking. “God,” he gasps and looks desperately to the ceiling, then over to Harry who stares back at him in concern. It only makes him laugh harder. Except predictably, the laughs aren’t laughs, they’re terrible choking sounds jerked from some miserable place deep in his chest. 

“ _Oh_. God,” he says through tears, holds out his hands from his body like he’s carrying so many heavy things. “What do I do? With all of.. all of _this_?” All of this I’m left with, John thinks, all of the love that will never never never go away. 

 

John looks down at his hands, the trembling fingers, his useless empty palms. 

 

\----

 

John almost managed to kiss Sherlock once, at that bed and breakfast in Dartmoor. It was the last night they were there, they’d come back to the inn, still a bit shaky on the legs after having been dosed with Frankland’s hallucinogen. Fear always confused the signals in John’s body, made him too bold or too impulsive. Always fight and never flight, that’s what his commanders would always say of him.

He remembers the way Sherlock looked there, a beautifully misplaced blip against the moorlands. John had wanted to cling to Sherlock, then. Maybe it was the fear effect of the compound, maybe John’s gut knew before his mind did that something was coming and that their time together was growing short.

 

They were walking back to their room after saying goodnight to Greg. He could tell that Sherlock was already craving nicotine again, his fingertips rubbed frenetically against each other, the relentless whisper of friction driving John mad.

John had only wanted to still him. 

He should have just slapped two patches on Sherlock’s forearm. 

 

Instead he’d said, “Quit that,” and had reached out for Sherlock’s hand. Spun around to face him right there in the middle of the hallway, held that hand inside both of his own. All the nervous energy flooded out of Sherlock’s body in one great rush, and into John’s. Now that John had him quieted, he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Together they stood there staring down at this reckless thing John had done, frozen to the spot. 

It was Sherlock who broke the stillness and took a half step into the gap between them. The fingertips of his free hand slowly found their way to the spot behind John’s left ear, just the lightest of grazes against skin. John wanted to close his eyes, lose himself in the burgeoning feeling of connection, but he’d made himself look at Sherlock’s face instead. 

God, but Sherlock’s eyes _were_ closed, his head bowed with messy fringe shadowing his face, lips pursed in the way he would do when he was either thinking very hard or trying not to think at all. 

John was a half second from leaning in, reaching up, but a couple from down the hall chose the moment to stumble out from their room, and without hesitation Sherlock had pulled away. Or maybe it was John it was who let go first.

Afterward, they both had acted like the moment in the hall never happened, part of the haze of events from the night before. 

 

Maybe that’s why John is cursed to relive it over and over in his thoughts and dreams. Along with the sound of Sherlock’s funny laugh and the intensity of his silence when he wouldn’t speak.

The way he said John’s name.

How they’d fight and John could never ever stay mad at him not ever, not even when he wanted to.

The image of Sherlock playing his violin, body framed by fading summer light from the window. 

A hundred different mornings, burned forever into John’s retinas. A whole world of possibilities were within those hands, and when Sherlock left him, the world was gone.

 

\---

 

Grief is a hell of a thing, the way it contorts everything it touches. A numbness, and rawness that goes bone deep. It’s never as simple as sadness. 

 

Some days John gets on just fine, after a year there are more good days than bad days. But then John will hear something only Sherlock would have thought was funny, or he’ll smell fresh bread and remember when Sherlock had taught himself off of youtube tutorials how to bake for reasons John will never know, or he’ll catch a flash of crystal colour eyes in a crowd and for a moment _Sherlock_ , but it’s never Sherlock. And it always hurts.

 

John finds himself more often than he ever thought he would in Mycroft’s company. They’ll meet for coffee or Mycroft will come checking in at Baker Street. They don’t speak much past pleasantries, and they definitely never speak about Sherlock. Neither of their guilt will allow it, John reckons. Mycroft is good at sitting silently without expectations. He still doesn’t like the man, on principle, because Sherlock would want that. Someone to keep all that pretentiousness in check.

 

Despite their bickering and rivalry, John always knew the brothers loved each other, knew that they understood and challenged each other in ways only siblings can. There’s some part of Sherlock in him, and John can’t shut the door in his face because of it. Mycroft will cut his eyes at John in a way that reminds him too much of Sherlock, say something sharp tongued or clever and sound the same, or some fleeting expression will trigger a swell of memory. John will see Sherlock in Mycroft and the agony of missing him will reach out its wretched hands and pull John underneath the flow. 

 

“Please don’t do that,” John asks him in frustration.

Mycroft sets his teacup in its saucer, “Pardon?”

“The slurping. Just…drink quietly.”

Mycroft mouth drops open, scandalised, “I do _not_ sl--”

“Yeah, you do,” John cuts him off, because now, see, the grief has already gotten away from him. “You do. You slurp, just like your brother.”

Mycroft rolls his eyes, and that too, hurts John to see it. Pale little orbs turning affronted circles in his skull.

“Well, he’s always done that,” Mycroft says.

“Did.” John corrects.

“Of course.” Mycroft frowns, eyes cast off to the side guiltily. The silence reasserts itself between them again for a full minute before Mycroft breaks it. “John…”

“No,” John says immediately, knowing a whole world of things John doesn’t want to hear are loaded in Mycroft’s mouth. “We’ve done really well not talking about it, so let’s just keep doing that, okay?”

“I know this year has been...challenging for you. For us all, of course. I didn’t realise it would be.. What you must understand..” 

Mycroft’s uncharacteristic floundering garners some sympathy from John. “What is it Mycroft?” he sighs and looks hard at the man whose brother he loved. 

“I’m sorry.”

John huffs, “I know. You’ve told me before. Maybe if we’d both been very different men, he’d still be here. But he’s not.” John’s ran many scenarios in his head by now of all the different ways he could have kept Sherlock safe, kept him alive. It doesn’t help to have the last words he said to Sherlock’s face were of him calling him a machine. He didn’t mean it. John promises he didn’t mean it. He was just angry and upset and felt helpless. If he could take it back he would. 

 

“Not just for that.” 

“What else is there, then,” and when Mycroft doesn’t answer immediately there’ a twinge of suspicion. “What else is left?” 

 

Mycroft’s face goes unreadable. “I’m sorry it had to happen, is all. For all of it, and for my part in it.”

 

\----

 

Sherlock wasn’t a sociopath, no matter his insistence, and definitely not in the way idiots who were only jealous of his gifts would say. He really, really, wasn’t. Sherlock was soft to the world in a way John has never been. Christ, no one cries that much and is a sociopath of any sort. Sherlock had a tender heart, in spite of himself. He had a penchant for hard luck cases with clients who had been chronically disadvantaged or failed by corrupt systems. He would put himself in the line of fire to save these people, without a thought to himself. God knows John stitched and plastered him back together enough times for that to be true. He was tender, in nearly every way a person can be tender. Flesh and bone and inescapable humanity.

John had obsessed over whatever it was that made Sherlock feel like he needed to build armor between himself and the world. John’s own emotional isolation proceeding Sherlock was a product of insecurities and mistrust stemming from a deeply dysfunctional childhood. It doesn’t take Sherlock to psychoanalyse John to his origins. Perhaps Sherlock had always known his own vulnerability and grew disillusioned by it and of always reconciling necessity with suffering. He chose to solve crimes instead of using his genius to seek out power. The Work, it was more than just a puzzle or a distraction, it was a fundamental part of who Sherlock was. 

 

John only ever wanted to protect him. It came out as possessiveness or jealousy sometimes, though John hadn’t meant for it to. Or maybe he did. He doesn’t know. John felt a need to bare his teeth when anyone got too close. Sherlock didn’t make it easy of course. Sherlock was always in the face of danger without a thought to himself, and he only thought of himself when he died. He didn’t think to ask for help, and he didn’t think about the fucking _mess_ that would spring up from his decisions. 

No. No, John shouldn’t think like that. Because Sherlock was brilliant, heartbreakingly beautiful, he was the best thing that ever happened to John and he was so fucking _frustrating_ , and John...Damnit, god _damn_ it. Idiot. And exactly what sort of plan was that? Just off and die and leave John all _alone_ and it’s been over a _year_ and John still can’t fucking _breathe_ from the wanting.

 

\----

 

There are no second chances with death John tells himself, and now he’s finally fucking losing it because this isn’t real. No way it can be. 

 

Sherlock’s dead. Fact. John watched it happen. Fact. No pulse. Blood on the pavement. Empty eyes. Fact. 

 

Conclusion: John has finally gone off the deep end. Because there’s no way Sherlock can be standing here, at half five in the morning, in the flat they both shared. He can’t be living and breathing, and talking in the quick, manic way he does when he’s nervous, and John has no idea what this Sherlock is saying but his voice is filling the room. Usually when John imagines Sherlock, particularly right at the beginning, the illusion is obviously counterfeit. Never a physical presence. Just the manufacturings of John’s desperate imagination. 

This Sherlock moves and breathes and speaks, his fingers nervously swipe through his hair and land on the back of a chair where they grip until fingernails blanch. The fabric of the chair forms to his touch.

 

“--so as you can understand I _couldn’t_ contact you. I had to appear dead, it was a matter of life or death, _your_ life or death as it were.” He’s rambling, but John still doesn’t understand any of it. “Moriarty’s network was extensive and he’d set so many contingency plans in place if it had gone wrong, and we weren’t sure always who to trust. And I know, I do know.. it’s been nearly two years. It was never my intention.. But it was the only way I could keep everyone safe. I didn’t know what else to do..” and here is where his voice breaks, just a little, just enough to shake John out of the shock threatening to pull him to the floor. 

 

“Are you all right?” John asks after a few moments in which John lives through at least ninety heart attacks. 

“You’re asking _me_? What?” 

“Are you all right?” John repeats, “Not hurt, or..dunno.” 

Sherlock’s lips tremble, eyes turning sad and confused and relieved all at once. When he answers, his voice is gone shaky and high. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m okay.”

 

But he doesn’t sound okay, so John walks over to him, hands ticking at his sides, always giving him away. He reaches toward Sherlock.

 

Sherlock flinches, just a little, the way people will when they’re expecting a hit and are steeling themselves to take it and not fight back. 

John couldn’t hurt him now. Not even if he wanted to. His life has revolved around hurting for too long, since before Sherlock even came into his life. A toxic home that bred nothing but silence and loneliness and violence. The unyielding rules of his father that policed emotion and left John confused for years afterward when he finally did figure out who and how to love. There was nothing of tenderness there, or of love, and if he pushes it now, the pain might never go away. So no, he can’t reach out in anger, not when he has the chance to change it.

His hand settles at the base of Sherlock’s neck, palm flat against the bony notches of his clavicle. Sherlock’s pulse is warm and steady against the tip of John’s forefinger.

 

Sherlock’s eyes squeeze shut, and somewhere inside John the world starts again.

 

\---

 

They’re in the kitchen, Sherlock is sitting on the bench eating directly from his carton of Chinese takeaway. He watches while John tracks down the oyster sauce he knows he bought a month ago. 

“You’re angry.”

“Not right now.”

Sherlock looks at John from under his fringe and says, “Even if that’s true this moment, you will be. Eventually.”

“Probably so,” John admits, “That said, you can never _ever_ ever do that to me again. I’m serious,” John points his chopsticks at Sherlock. “You’ve no idea the tit I’ve been to everyone. I’m surprised Mrs. Hudson didn’t poison the water to drive me out.”

 

Sherlock looks guiltily back into his carton, picks around at the veg, “Yes, I know. I nicked Mycroft’s little black book when he’d come to extract me from Serbia. He would never tell me anything about you.” 

It doesn’t particularly surprise John, not the fact that Mycroft knew the entire time that Sherlock was alive and was instrumental in this whole mad plan, or that Mycroft persists in observing John’s behaviors and habits through god knows what means. 

John smiles to himself, “You asked about me?”

“Of course,” Sherlock says immediately, then again, “Of course I did, John.”

“And what did you think,” John leans his back against the fridge, “About what you read?”

 

Sherlock looks at John for a moment, then back down into his carton. “I thought you might forget about me. After a time. As they do.”

“They?”

Sherlock shrugs, won’t turn his eyes back to John in a way that seems too deliberate, “People. They tend to move on, it’s just nature. I assumed you would as well. Find a wife, find something to make your life full. It’s not a bad thing, John. Suppose I should’ve known you’d be one to take to the streets in a black veil.” 

“You were my best friend, I-- You were my best friend,” John finishes lamely.

“I didn’t think you’d feel responsible, given time. Apparently I underestimated your capacity for self-loathing.”

John chuckles a little, because Sherlock sounds genuinely frustrated by it, the evidence having lied to him. “And how does it feel to be wrong?”

 

“It’s a wonderful thing,” Sherlock says, and looks John over sadly, “But it’s terrible thing too.”

 

\---

 

“Still feels sort of not real, you know.” John stretches in the doorway to their bathroom while Sherlock brushes his teeth. He’s dressed down into his pyjamas, fetched them from boxes Mrs. Hudson had stored in some dark corner of 221B. John fights hard not to focus on the bow of Sherlock’s spine over the sink, or how that curl John always loved is still resting there at his nape. He feels guilty about it, how quickly his heart picks up where it left off. How his mind shouts at him to stop wasting time, because as John has learned, time runs out when you least expect it. To have it start again, is perhaps the rarest opportunity in the world. 

 

It’s nearly gone midnight, Sherlock’s been alive again for nineteen hours. They should have said goodnight hours ago when Sherlock started yawning while watching the crime report, but John couldn’t bring himself to suggest it. Frankly, at this point, he’s a bit afraid afraid he’ll go asleep and wake up in the same continuous hell he was in a day ago.

“Think I’ll turn into a pumpkin when the clock strikes twelve,” Sherlock asks through a mouthful of foam, smiles at John in the mirror, and spits into the sink.

“Pretty funny for a dead bloke,” John deadpans back, “And no. Nevermind. Shock makes it seem, is all. Anyone else I’d probably check myself into a padded room for seeing ghosts, but _you_ coming back from the dead? It’s a very _Sherlock_ thing to do, now, isn’t it?”

 

Sherlock walks toward John, eyes narrowing and searching John’s face, “Is that the anger?”

“Quit asking, it’s like you’re waiting for me to start punching holes through the plaster any second.”

“I _am_ waiting for that.”

“Well stop. Let me.. Do this.” Whatever _this_ is, and Sherlock seems to accept it. “Just,” John adds, “Are you going to leave again?”

“No, we’re free of all that for now,” then Sherlock blinks, “Oh, wait, unless,” he looks to the door, “I shouldn’t have assumed. If you’d rather I stay elsewhere while you adjust--”

“NO,” John practically lunges at him, to grab him by the arms and hold him to the spot, but manages just short of that. “No, I only meant are you going back out there? For.. the Work. Moriarty, and all.” And then, in case it isn’t completely clear, “I want you here.”

“Good,” Sherlock says quietly, “Not sure I could stay away, anyway.”

 

John is about to ask what that means, precisely, when a small smile sets into corner of Sherlock’s mouth, those eyes turn mischievous, then he reaches toward John--

\--and pinches him hard on the upper arm.

“Jesus, Sherlock!” John shouts and rubs at the spot, “What the _hell_ was that for!”

“See there?” Sherlock takes John’s wrist, turns his arm up so John can see the angry red spot left behind. “Ghosts can’t do that.” He hides the bruise with cool fingertips and John’s heart tries to jump from within him. It’s forever before Sherlock’s hand slides away. 

 

\---

 

John keeps rubbing at his bruise long after Sherlock has closed his door and gone to bed. He closes his eyes, tells himself to let go long enough to fall asleep, prods the bruise to remind himself that if he falls asleep, Sherlock won’t suddenly disappear by morning. This isn’t a dream, this isn’t a dream, this isn’t a dream, this isn’t a dream. But his entire body, from brain to blood to bones, is wound tight like it’s holding something inside from getting out. It’s not like this is a new feeling John gets after being around Sherlock, but his own hands feel heavy and inadequate. When Sherlock was dead, fantasies were lonely things that left John aching instead of satisfied. 

 

He calls Harry after a half hour of this, and it takes another half hour of convincing her that he’s not an absolute lunatic, for her to believe him. She threatens to kill Sherlock all over again, for what he’s put John through, nevermind how good the cause was. _He didn’t see what I saw. He didn’t watch you go to bits and disappear in front of him. Sorry, no I don’t understand._ John gets it He’s watched the same thing happen to Harry, watched as alcohol took away her smile and numbed her all up so that she could forget where it was they came from. He understood it, but father had been dead for years so he couldn’t hate him, and he couldn’t hate a bottle It really was like watching someone you love become a stranger in front of you, so he hated that stranger, the interloper into the last bit of John’s past that he cared to remember. 

 

He hears the door knob rattle and turn, and Sherlock sneaks into his room, leans back up against the door and slides down until he’s sitting on the floor. Sherlock isn’t talking, so maybe John shouldn’t either? 

He does anyway.

 

“Sherlock,” he whispers, “Hey, something wrong?”

“Trouble sleeping,” he whispers back, though it doesn’t exactly explain why he’s come to John’s room instead of playing violin or playing on his mobile as is typical.

“Oh,” John says, faces back toward the ceiling. “Me too.”

 

“Are you angry yet?”

John thinks about it, blows out a long breath from between his lips, “Mmh..no. But check back in the morning and we’ll see. I’ll try and give fair warning, but don’t expect too much.” Sherlock snorts and John hears him shifting. “You can…” John pauses, unsure if it’ll be misread if he offers, “You don’t have to sit on the floor, you know.”

“That wouldn’t be.. odd for you?”

“No,” John says too fast, then, “I think we’ve established I have pretty high threshold for odd.” Sherlock’s not the first man John’s shared a bed with, not by a long shot. Besides, it isn’t as if they’ve not shared rooms before, dozed off next to each on the sofa (once with John’s head on Sherlock’s shoulder and when he woke up Sherlock hadn’t moved a centimetre.) 

“Okay,” Sherlock says in some mix of surprise and trepidation, but he walks confidently over to the empty space John makes for him and smooths over the sheets with his hands before climbing in. John closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, calms the automatic uptick in his pulse that comes with Sherlock’s proximity. Sherlock squirms a little, then again, his foot brushes against John’s and that immediately has him still and in place. 

“What now?” 

John clears his throat, “Sleep?” He sees Sherlock nod in the dimness and the silence extends itself once again. John closes his eyes, but all he can hear is Sherlock breathing, feel the faint heat of him against his side. Maybe it’s because they’re here in the darkness that John feels suddenly bold. Mornings have a way of erasing the truth of the night if you let it, so if he makes admissions now and they aren’t met in return, the morning can reset the fallout. Maybe. He turns slowly onto his side toward Sherlock. 

 

“I missed you, y’know.” 

“I missed you too,” his voice is soft, a gentle chord in the darkness. 

 

“Did you think about me?” and John knows he’s edging into precarious territory, but he has to know. He needs to know how Sherlock feels, and how he felt, or if their realisations had come to such very different conclusions. John has missed the chance before, doing it again would be unforgivable.

“All the time,” Sherlock whispers, and turns on his side to face John, eyes closing hard like it pains him to remember, “Constantly.”

“Didn’t know I was so distracting.”

“Well. Now you know.”

“What would you think about?”

“John..”

John lets his hand wander underneath pillow until he can feel it parallel with Sherlock’s. “You don’t have say.”

 

After a moment Sherlock breathes out unsteadily. “I would try to imagine what you’d say to me before I did something stupid. Or what questions you’d ask, always the simple ones to keep me from getting ahead of myself. You were the voice in my head the entire time.” He pauses “Being home with you. I know it probably wasn’t easy, me having the sort of habits I do, but it was easy for me. I missed that. You singing while washing up. Even your terrible typing,” Sherlock laughs.

“Shut up, it’s fine,” John takes his hand from under the pillow and points his forefinger at Sherlock. 

“It’s fine for the average nine year old,” Sherlock pushes John’s finger away, and their hands rest next to each other again, the lines of their outer fingers touching. “I thought about this too,” Sherlock says after a long time.

“What,” John prompts when nothing else comes.

“About.. being close to you, in all the ways people can be close.” John’s heart begins racing. “But I didn’t..” Sherlock sighs, “It never occurred to me you might feel the same. Even right now with you next to me, I can’t tell how you feel, or what you want, or if I’m wrong. I only know what I want.”

John licks his lips, asks steadily, “What is it that you want? No--don’t shake your head now, Sherlock, you have to tell me, because whatever it is--”

Sherlock leans in, resolute, and steals a kiss off John’s moving lips. 

It’s a light thing, just enough hint of pressure to make it unmistakable. Sweeter than anything John has ever known. There and gone in a fraction of an instant. 

 

John’s glitches, briefly, out of existence. Held somewhere between the sheets, the sky, the great stuttering heaves of his heart.

“I,” Sherlock blinks, a look of horror flashes across his face as he misreads John’s stillness as rejection. “Oh. John. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have--” and he’s sitting up to leave, about to flee the scene, when John bursts full force back online.

 

John’s body works before his mouth is able to, rushes ahead of him like fire seeking its path to oxygen. He’s grabbing Sherlock by the waist, pulling him firmly into bed, and with half of Sherlock underneath him, John kisses back with all the answering he can muster. Pours all the years of longing, of adoration and acceptance, then loneliness, of grief and sorrow, into this kiss. 

Sherlock makes some sort of desperate, muffled sound underneath him, his hands grab at John’s back and find their way up to his shoulders to pull John closer. The panic of a moment ago is forgotten, replaced with a new sort of panic, the kind that makes fever flourish low and insistent in John’s belly. 

 

Sherlock’s hands come up, cup over John’s ears, and _god_ they’re trembling. He meets John’s mouth over and over, little shaky breaths escaping and breaking against John’s cheek when John moves to adjust the angle of their heads. Sherlock is beautiful like this, pliant to everything John throws at him. It’s clearly been some time since he’s been kissed or touched, because he’s all eagerness, sweet and clumsy, and that suits John just fine. He’s eager too. Sherlock pulls the short hairs at John’s nape and-- yeah, _Jeesus_ yeah, it’s _really_ fine. It’s perfect, in fact. He tells Sherlock as much, the word ripped from his mouth, an obscured, “You--mmf--perfect,” because John can hardly talk and kiss the man at the same time.

“Really?” Sherlock asks, breathless, then, “ _Oh,_ ” and arches when John gets his teeth against some spot under his chin. Sherlock seems starved of this, of his hands on John and John’s hands on him. John empathises with each and every greedy scrape of fingernail against flesh. Sherlock grabs the hem of John’s vest, hesitates for a moment, then begins tugging it over his head. 

 

John grabs him by the wrist before Sherlock can get it all the way off, “We don’t--,” John exhales, tries to think through the burn of lust. He doesn’t want to come across as presumptuous, despite already being on top of Sherlock, one hand up his shirt, the other in his hair, pyjama bottoms doing nothing to disguise either of their arousal. “There’s not a rush, if you aren’t.. I’ll still want you in the morning. Is all.” God. Terrible. He can’t touch Sherlock and think straight.

Sherlock blinks, shakes his head a bit, maybe to clear it out as well. “Say that again.”

“I meant I don’t have any expecta--”

“No, no no, not that part. The last thing. Say it again.”

John thinks for a moment, then, “I want you,” he tells him. “I _love_ you. You’ve no idea how much.”

Sherlock’s eyes go dark and urgent, “I do,” he says with utter sincerity, and then John’s being pulled back down, his shirt pulled up and off. It goes flying off the bed to go live on the floor where it should’ve gone years and years ago. God, the time they’ve lost to hesitance and insecurity, it’s no small thing.

 

Getting Sherlock out of his clothes is easy since Sherlock is actually motivated to help, to lean up and shuck the vest off the side of the bed. John barely gets to help undo the ties to the pyjama pants and slide them over the lovely swell of his bum, before Sherlock is wriggling and moving underneath him, and _Christ_ the moving. He must be doing it on purpose because there’s no need for undulatory thrusts of hips, and after the first two seconds of it, John forgets about the pyjamas. Once Sherlock’s clothes are off, John rears back, just for a second, just to look. 

“Wow.”

“What?” Sherlock pants, eyes flicking around to figure out what John’s so enthralled by. As if there’s anything else in the entire _world_ John could possibly find more interesting right now.

“Nothing,” John tells him, then laughs helplessly, “Just you’re.. Hot.” He whistles through his teeth, and shrugs helplessly. 

“Thanks,” Sherlock says with a bit of sarcasm, though John can tell by the corners of his mouth that he’s pleased to hear it. 

 

He’s seen Sherlock in states of undress before, shirtless more times than he can count, but this is new. The flush in Sherlock’s cheeks, the pink fanning out across his chest, that’s all new. There’s a slight concave of his belly from lying down and John traces his forefinger down the middle to Sherlock’s navel, the crests of his hips John has fantasised about fitting into his palms so many times before.

The rest is more or less obscured by John’s own hips, but he can feel the heat where their cocks are slotted next each other, Sherlock leaking a damp spot into John’s bottoms. John takes Sherlock’s hands, interlocks their fingers and anchors them against the mattress. He plants little sucking kisses over his collar, down his chest. Sherlock’s voice begins filtering into his exhales.

 

Their height difference makes John have to stretch a bit, but he leans back, lifts up, rubbing their erections together. It’s a graze really, nothing more than the promise of friction, but Sherlock’s mouth falls open a little, eyes already going fever-pitched, so John does it again and again. He swears he isn’t teasing, but there’s something instantly addictive in hearing Sherlock’s soft moans, in feeling him move underneath John’s hands. Being allowed to see Sherlock like this, kiss bruised and trembling, maybe the only one ever, it..it’s..

John loses any script when Sherlock breaks one hand away, and uses it to grab John’s bottom to grind them hard together. Sherlock gasps, whispers something that sounds vaguely like _fuck_. Now that Sherlock has John moving the way he wants, it’s sort of hard to _stop_.

“Jesus Sherlock,” John thrusts against him, Sherlock’s cock catching damply on John’s pyjamas. John pauses only to undo the tie but it pulls into a knot. Sherlock grits out some frustrated sound, part growl, part whine, and moves his hands to John’s waist. “Yeah, christ, help me,” John babbles, but Sherlock fingers are shaking too much. 

“What the _fuck,_ ” Sherlock demands, not really to John it seems, maybe out there, to the universe for being unfair and giving John knots in his pyjamas. Sherlock is also very clever, and he finds the small buttons at the fly and manages to thumb them open. He fumbles his hand between them, his fingers curling and stroking. John swears and mashes his face into the crook of Sherlock’s neck, pants hot hair against hot skin. 

 

Sherlock fidgets with something off the side of the bed. “I want it,” he whispers, urgent, pressing a plastic bottle into John’s hand and guiding his hips in an implication. 

“Oh god, yeah I-- yeah,” John shuts his eyes tight, thrusts shakily against Sherlock’s palm then tries to focus long enough on the mechanics of what Sherlock wants. It’s a physical effort, calming down long enough to touch Sherlock open and slick himself up, while Sherlock gasps and writhes and doesn’t help at all, and John keeps getting carried away fingering him when Sherlock makes those devastated sounds and-- 

“What?” John asks, tears his eyes away from where his fingers pump quickly in and out of Sherlock.

But Sherlock doesn’t seem to be capable of repeating himself again and instead taps rapidly against John’s left hip, and throws his arms over John’s shoulders to pull him down into a kiss.

“I will,” John promises and rearranges his position, “Jesus, I can’t believe we’re about to-”

He finds the spot and pushes in. Stops. Breathes. God. _God_ , he’s _inside_ him. Incredible. Sherlock’s fingers dig hard into John’s back, and for one moment there’s complete silence in the room. 

It takes time to become fully seated, Sherlock winces through the first several seconds but tells John, “I’m good it’s fine-- give me a minute--I’m fine, fine,” holds tight when John tries to pull back, and finally _there_.

 

John stills his spine against all instinct to set into a steady rhythm and nudges their foreheads together. “This isn’t going to last long.”

“I know.”

“You were a ghost yesterday,” John kisses Sherlock’s still panting mouth, down his throat, “And now I’m about to come in you. I can’t explain how mad that feels.”

Sherlock shudders and pulls at John’s body, “Show me, then.”

“Christ, you really-” but John can’t remember what he was going to say, because right now he has to _do something_. Right now he has to dig fingers against flesh and teeth against flesh, push over and over into Sherlock’s body like it’s the only thing keeping him from disappearing again.

Without warning the anger hits, just as Sherlock promised it would, hot and resolute in centre of John’s chest. Not anger for Sherlock, or for the years John has spent walking around with a gaping wound at the heart of him, no. He isn’t sure where it’s come from, only that it’s there like a second skin. Some wretched thing where ugliness stems from, guilt and shame and so much self-loathing. This anger burns tracks in his veins, old bitter blood being chased away by something new. Something less familiar and far sweeter. 

“ _Sherlock,_ ” John gasps, rhythm stuttering before he’s sitting back and grabbing hold of Sherlock’s upper thighs, unable to do anything else but pull out and push in, and in and in and in, their flesh smacking together until Sherlock’s expression goes bright and glazed all at once. Until all John hears is breathing full of that voice, and Sherlock is all tightness and shaking underneath him, telling John not to stop, as if John could _possibly_ do anything else but this. John watches as Sherlock comes, pupils blown wide and glittering and just a little bit shocked. It’s beautiful, enough to make John slow down a bit and see it happen.

“God, John, your face,” Sherlock whispers between breaths in the wake in of it, then, “Do it, come on, come on.”

It’s not so much a choice at this point. Sherlock’s body is pushed backward with every plunge, and John gasps around the feeling suffusing him and tearing old bits of him asunder all at once. He’s coming and still thrusting hard into him, and Sherlock cries out with him as the first spasm takes hold. The anger dies there, somewhere between one breath and the next, curls up and dies so quietly and so completely that it doesn’t even feel like death; washes away until all that’s left is the love. The great _fucking_ calamity of love.

It leaves John trembling and sweating, face turned down on Sherlock’s chest as he tries to stop hyperventilating in the wake of the purge. 

“Shh,” Sherlock strokes his skin soothingly, “I know, I know, I know.”

 

“Are you okay,” Sherlock asks once John’s breathing has settled more.

“Yeah,” John says, kisses his cheek as he pulls out of him, somehow still not entirely flaccid, despite sating himself so utterly on this man. “You?”

Fingers pet over the sweat damp hair over John’s ears, at his nape. “Amazing. I mean..truly? Better than I was expecting.”

John eyes him up, “Not sure how to take that exactly.”

“No, I mean me,” Sherlock laughs and keeps smoothing his hands over John’s back, “I don’t have any comparison, but as first times go--”

“--ten out of ten,” John agrees and rolls back onto his pillow, and Sherlock complies effortlessly when John gathers him to his side, says after awhile,“I just never thought I’d be…” he huffs a laugh.

“What?” Sherlock asks, voice still breathy and dazed. When John doesn’t answer immediately he sits up on an elbow. “C’mon,” he urges, a curious smile playing at his pink lips. “Be what?” Sherlock settles his chin on John’s chest and looks up at him from underneath a flop of fringe as he walks his fingers across John’s breast, up his neck, cups his ear with the palm of his hand. 

“Dunno,” John says softly to the ceiling, “Happy. I suppose.”

Fingertips that had been tracing the curve of John’s ear stop moving. It takes John a few beats of silence to realise he’s stopped moving entirely. When John finally does look down, it’s into a pair of teary eyes.

John knows the difference between Sherlock’s crocodile tears, and the ones that come from that gentle and vulnerable place that Sherlock carries so close to the surface in spite of himself. 

“Oh, Sherlock, are you really?” John smiles at him fondly and he can’t help it because, god, he’s sweet, he is. “Come here,” John gathers him up by the shoulders until they’re nose to nose, John’s hands on either side of his face, and he kisses the angles of his cheeks before planting a soft, lingering kiss on Sherlock’s mouth. “Don’t cry. It’s good.”

 

“I love you, you know,” Sherlock whispers. 

“How much?”

“To the moon,” Sherlock leans into John’s touch. “Even to that useless part we never see, because that part is harder to reach and farther away.’

“Is it?” John clears his throat around his own sudden lump.

“Yes,” Sherlock says and resettles his head on John’s chest. “And I want to know the darker and harder to reach parts of you. As well as the fully lit parts.”

“Oh,” John says, but nothing else comes, and that’s okay. 

It’s okay.


End file.
